War With Russia Is On The Agenda (Paul Craig Roberts)

[Ghost Dog]

...The failure of the American media is again evident in the coverage of the Georgian-Russian conflict. The US media presented the conflict as a Russian invasion of Georgia, whereas in actual fact the American and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian military launched a sneak attack to kill and to drive the Russian population out of South Ossetia, a separatist province.

Russian peacekeepers, together with Georgian ones, had been stationed in South Ossetia since the early 1990s. On orders from Mikheil Saakashvili, the American puppet “president” of Georgia, the Georgian peacekeepers turned their weapons on the unsuspecting Russian peacekeepers and murdered them.

This action by Saakashvili, elected with money from the neoconservative National Endowment for Democracy, an election-rigging tool of US hegemony, was a war crime. In truth, the Russians should have hung Saakashvili, as he is far more guilty than was Saddam Hussein. But it is Russia, not Saakashvili, that the US media has demonized.

Americans have become perfect subjects for George Orwell’s Big Brother. They sit stupidly in front of the TV news or the New York Times or Washington Post and absorb the lies fed to them. What is wrong with Americans? Why do they put up with it? Are Americans the nation of sheep that Judge Andrew P. Napolitano says they are? Americans flaunt “freedom and democracy” and live under a Ministry of Propaganda.

Two decades ago, President Reagan reached agreement with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev to end the dangerous cold war. But every one of Reagan’s successors has sought to pick a new fight with Russia. In violation of the agreement, NATO has been taken to Russia’s borders, and the US is determined to put former constituent parts of Russia herself into NATO. In an effort to neutralize Russia’s nuclear deterrent and compromise her independence, the US is putting anti-ballistic missile bases on Russia’s borders.

The gratuitously aggressive US military policy toward Russia will lead to nuclear war. I am confident that if Americans elect John McCain, or the Republicans steal another presidential election, there will be nuclear war in the second decade of the 21st century. The neocon lies, propaganda, macho flag-waving, and use of US foreign policy in the interests of a few military-security firms, oil companies, and Israel are all leading in that direction.

/... http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20626.htm

cf. the discussion on an earlier Paul Craig Roberts article here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3807941&mesg_id=3809656

[protect our future]

1. Yes. We have one final chance to prevent this type of war: electing Barack.

Sorry to be so blunt, but it is what I believe.

[arendt]

10. I will vote for Obama, but he's not much better on the anti-Russian front...

Biden went out of his way to praise Georgia in his speech. Obama uses Zbigniew Brzezinski as a foreign policy advisor. There isn't a dime's worth of difference in the GOP/Dem talking points: bad Russians, good, freedom-loving Georgians. If pressed by peaceniks, the Dems will use the "afraid of the swing voter/patriot voter" excuse; but its BS.

No, sorry to say, our elites still want to push Russia into a corner and smash it. Obama will do the pushing with diplomacy, which is safer; but he is no less involved in the oil grab than the GOP.

arendt

[endthewar]

22. That's the nature of politics

Obama's first response to the conflict called on both sides to stand now. He later had to ratchet it up else the media would have labeled him a pansy that would let Russia roll their tanks on American soil if they wanted to. Would have fed into their talking point about Obama wanting to retreat and surrender in Iraq. He's pragmatic, but he isn't stupid.

[The Traveler]

2. War is quite possible

but not inevitable. Putin is an oligarch, in love with his power and ambition ... George Bush's soul mate in every way. That makes him dangerous, but unlike Bush he is neither a fanatic or a fool. We must face him with the resolve of one who is both unafraid to fight, and who is not looking to start one. In that context, useful negotiations can be conducted, and conflict resolved before the bullets fly.

Barack Obama can do this. McCain will blow it. McCain is overly aggressive and clumsy in his approach to strategy. As another poster said, I hate to be so blunt, but there it is.

[DUlover2909]

3. The Russians wouldn't start using nukes first, McCain would.

I have no doubt that Russia is serious about it's national interests and it's national security. They also have better spies than we do. The intelligence war would be won by them before nukes got in the air. I would imagine that if McCain was our president when tensions flared and they got wind that we would escalate the conflict then I would predict a cooling off of the situation by an event that is unpredictable. I mean that the Russian foreign intelligence service would neutralize the problem with a swift, decisive, and elegant stroke of skulduggery.

[protect our future]

4. I've wondered who might play the "preemptive strike game" first. nt

[Sequoia]

18. "Shall we play a ga-a-me?"

[TreasonousBastard]

5. I read that piece and he's a bit hyper...

chomping at the bit for some really bad news.

Besides, he's wrong about the Times which had some good coverage of events and history over there. Not that anyone actually reads it, which is the real problem.

Cheney and his buddies are calling the shots over this, and they don't give a shit that the Cold War is over. But, that they are churlish scumbags pushing their weight around where they don't belong doesn't mean they want a war with Russia-- it means they don't see the possibility of a war with Russia. And while that's scary enough, they're all gone by next year, and Putin seems crafty enough not to fall into the trap while waiting.

(At least I hope he's crafty enough.)

[mojowork_n]

6. B.S. -- The Times coverage was full of the usual nonsense

Take these first paragraphs from this article:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E03E2DE103FF934A2575BC0A9629C8B63

By C. J. CHIVERS
Published: August 17, 2004
From the moment he took office in January, Mikhail Saakashvili, the New York-trained lawyer turned president of Georgia, has rushed his nation along an agenda of ambitious design.

Drawing on public support after chasing his predecessor, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, from power, Mr. Saakashvili has moved against corruption, pledged to revive Georgia's economy, steered his government closer to the West and vowed to unify the fractured country.

Georgians have found his energy and momentum compelling. His popularity remains high.

Saakashvili's entire statement is printed:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/world/europe/27saakashvili.html

...without any statement from the Ossetians or Russians.

The language used to describe S. Ossetia made it sound like the Georgians were performing some sort of "urban renewal" project, cleaning up a slum.

Graphic footage of the bombing of Gori, complete with dead Georgian soldiers...

...but we *never* see equivalent scenes of war devestation -- or dead American soldiers -- in Iraq.

As Dave Lindorff wrote:

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff08132008.html

Apparently, in the view of our corporate news editors and managers, it is important for Americans to fully witness the bloody horrors of war when that war is being fought by Russia, but we are to be carefully protected from seeing such things when they are being perpetrated by our own centurions. We aren’t even allowed to see the grievous injuries and death being suffered by our own troops.

This is not news. This is propaganda, pure and simple.

American corporate news media broadcasts and articles should include a disclaimer: “This report was approved by the media managers of the Bush/Cheney administration.”

B.S.

[TreasonousBastard]

14. Have you read it all? Some how I doubt it...

since just since Tuesday there have been five articles and an editorial. And I doubt any have been linked to by Counterpunch. I read the print edition every day and on hot days there have been pages of articles about the Caucasus-- each from a different point of view. It's not too difficult to grab a few paragraphs here and there and make the Times look bad.

The coverage that I have read, not that which has been explained to me by others, has been a balanced explanation of the complex events going on over there, and has had no explicit anti-Russian bias. This week, in fact. it's doing a fair job of further explaining why the Russians are upset at us not only sticking our noses where they don't belong, but doing a lousy job of it.

[Sequoia]

19. That Putin is one smart fox.

Russians know how to wait it out. Napoleon found that out the hard way.

[gordianot]

7. A full fledged nuclear exchange is no longer necessary for a nuclear war.

A few good EMP bursts to fry out the Internet infrastructure is all that is needed to assure world chaos and major economic destruction on a grand scale. Any one with nuclear weapons and missile's has this capability.

Actually a really good solar flare has the same capability.

[Ghost Dog]

8. ...

...Race and propaganda are more likely to determine the outcome of the November election than any awareness or consideration of real issues by voters.

The real issues are suffocated by the media. The American middle class is being destroyed by jobs offshoring and work visas for foreigners, while the incomes of the super rich are soaring. The US dollar’s reserve currency status is eroded. The US is massively in debt at home and abroad. Health insurance is unaffordable for the vast majority of the population. Injured veterans are being nickeled and dimed, while Halliburton’s profits escalate. Americans are losing their homes, while the US government bails out banks. Wars with Iran, Russia, and China are being planned in order to secure US hegemony.

Americans no longer have a government that is for the people and by the people. They have a government for and by special interests and an insane ideology.

But Americans have war, which lets them take out all their frustrations, resentments, and disappointments on “Muslim terrorists” and “Russian aggressors...”

[mojowork_n]

9. True that.

Where's it from? Do you have a link?

[Ghost Dog]

11. From the Paul Craig Roberts OP quoted.

He goes on to say, in conclusion:

Obama, if elected, is no guarantee against nuclear war. Obama has shown that he is as much under the Israel Lobby’s thumb as McCain. Obama’s foreign affairs advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, is not a neocon, but he was born in Warsaw, Poland, and has the Pole’s animosity toward Russia. The Bush administration has already changed US war doctrine to permit preemptive nuclear attack. With the US government determined to ring Russia with puppet states and military bases, war is inevitable.

Presidential appointees face confirmation in the Senate. Any of Obama’s appointees who might be out of step with plans for US and Israeli hegemony could expect opposition from large corporations and the Israel Lobby. There is no assurance that an Obama administration would not be positioned on “the issues” by the same special interests that have positioned the Bush administration.

Americans are filled with hubris, not with knowledge. They have no awareness of the calamity that their government’s pursuit of hegemony is bringing to themselves and to life on earth.

/-> http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20626.htm

[mojowork_n]

12. Yeah... Writing from the complete, opposite end of the spectrum...

Mumia pretty much came to the same conclusion:

http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/06/14/mumia-is-obamas-victory-ours/

Politics is the art of making people believe that they are in power when in fact, they have none. It is a measure of how dire is the hour that they’ve passed the keys to the kingdom to a Black man. As in many American cities, Black Mayors were let in when the treasuries were almost barren, and tax bases were almost at rock-bottom. With the nation’s manufacturing base also a thing of history, amidst the socioeconomic wreckage of globalization, with foreign affairs in shambles, the rulers reach for a pretty, brown face to front for the Empire. ‘Real change that you could believe in’ would be an end to Empire, and an end to wars for corporate greed, not just a change of the shade of the political managers. That change, I’m afraid, is still to come.

[DemReadingDU]

16. Calamity coming

"Americans are filled with hubris, not with knowledge. They have no awareness of the calamity that their government’s pursuit of hegemony is bringing to themselves and to life on earth."

I see it coming too. Frightening what is ahead.

[tama]

20. 150 years

since US has been in war. American public has longe since lost any and all sense of what war really means. No, real war is not about "supporting the troops" that fight an imperialisitic occupation somewhere else.

Russians, if anyone, can still remember real war. Russians love peace like USA can ever imagine.

[MasonJar]

13. If I remember correctly, Obama also came out anti-Russia. He was

probably protecting himself and his campaign instead of educating the people about the true situation. Biden even went to Georgia, and clearly he supports the government there. On the other hand, McCain is such a foolish warmonger that there is no doubt that he would be a trigger happy president, which is clearly unacceptable and exceedingly frightening. We are truly screwed as a country if McCain wins. Bush may have already destroyed us with his smug implementation of neocon hegemony. McCain will finish the job. I blame the media for most of it and the Republican liars and cheaters, who prevented two true patrician patriots, Al Gore and John Kerry, from leading this country to a destiny of greatness. Oh, what we have become and what we could have been!!!!!!!!!

[tama]

21. "Destiny of Greatness"

I like humility better. And i believe god(s) do also. Small hobbits good, Great Sauron bad.

[amuse bouche]

15. No more war

[yurbud]

17. k & r